Entitled Chefs-d’œuvre ?, the inaugural exhibition of the Centre Pompidou-Metz will embrace every part of the new Centre. This exhibition will consider the notion of masterpiece, a notion that has been widely abandoned by artists and the public when considering art from 20th and 21st centuries.

Chefs-d’œuvre ? looks at the notion of the masterpiece, past, present and future. Is this notion still relevant today? Who decides what is a masterpiece and what isn’t? Once a masterpiece, always a masterpiece?

Chefs-d’œuvre ? exhibits major works from the collection of the Musée National d’Art Moderne at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Of the 780 works on show, 700 have been loaned to the Centre Pompidou-Metz by the Centre Pompidou. Some have rarely been loaned before, such as Calder’s Josephine Baker IV, Klein’s Grande anthropophagie bleue (ANT 76), and Picasso’s Woman with Red Head. The exhibition also includes specially-commissioned pieces by contemporary artists. To mark the opening of the Centre Pompidou-Metz, and welcome it into the worldwide community of major cultural institutions, prestigious establishments in France and internationally have agreed to make a symbolic contribution by loaning a major work from their collections.

The exceptional group of works thus assembled fosters thought on notions of taste, collections, museums and aesthetic judgement, and covers the entire time period and artistic disciplines in the Centre Pompidou’s collection: painting, sculpture, installation, graphic art, photography, video, sound art, film, architecture, design etc. Masterpieces? is a constant reminder of the multi-disciplinary approach for which the Centre Pompidou is renowned.